Community art has long suffered from poor documentation, itself a side effect of the poor resources it has historically had at its disposal. One of the main purposes of this site is to make available books, reports and other work I’ve written over the past 40 years, alongside other documents that I have collected or that have been shared with me. In some cases, such as early community arts newsletters, copyright is share or unknown; in others, as in my own work, it is available on Creative Commons or Open Access terms. If I have unwittingly added anything here that breaches anyone’s copyright, please contact me and I’ll take the necessary steps.
Over the years, a number of books have been published about community and participatory art, and many remain worth reading for more than historical reasons. Unfortunately, most are also out of print, but you may be able to find secondhand copies online. The following list is, like everything else on this site, partial and incomplete; it also adopts a generous definition of participatory art.
1974 Henri, A., Total Art, Environments, Happenings, and Performance, New York
1974 ACGB, Community Arts, The Report of the Community Arts Working Party, June 1974, The Arts Council of Great Britain, London
1978 Braden, S., Artists and People, London.
1980 Craig, S., Dreams and Deconstructions, Alternative theatre in Britain, Ambergate
1981 McGrath, J. A Good Night Out, Popular Theatre: Audience, Class and Form, London
1984 Kelly, O., Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels, London.
1986 Kelly, O., Lock, J., & Merkel, K., Another Standard 86, Culture and Democracy: The Manifesto, London
1986 Kenna, C., & Medcalf. R., eds., Printing is Easy…?, Community Printshops, 1970-86, London
1987 Jellicoe, A., Community Plays: How to Put Them On, London
1987 Shaw, R., The Arts and the People, London
1988 Van Erven, E., Radical People’s Theatre, Indiana
1989 Finnegan, R., The Hidden Musicians, Music-Making in an English Town, Cambridge.
1990 Kershaw, B. & Coult, T, , Engineers of the Imagination, The Welfare State Handbook, London.
1990 Peaker, A. & Vincent, J., Arts in Prison: Towards a Sense of Achievement, London
1992 Kershaw, B., The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention, London
1992 Van Erven, E., The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia, Indiana
1994 Matarasso, F. & Sarker, B., Making Space, South Asian Dance and Disability, Leicester
1994 Matarasso, F., Regular Marvels, A handbook for animateurs, practitioners and development workers in dance, mime, music and literature, Leicester
1995 Dickson, M., ed., Art with People, Sunderland
1995 Hewison, R., Culture and Consensus, England, Art and Politics since 1940, London
1996 Matarasso, F., Defining Values, Evaluating Arts Programmes, Stroud
1996 Matarasso, Northern Lights, The Social Impact of the Fèisean (Gaelic Festivals), Stroud
1996 Peaker, A. & Pratt, B., Arts in Prisons: A Good Doss or Purposeful Activity?, Loughborough
1997 Matarasso, F., Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts, Stroud
1999 Tusa, J., Art Matters, Reflecting on Culture, London
2000 Boal, A., Theater of the Oppressed, (trans. McBride, C. & M-O, & Fryer, E.) London
2000 Wallinger, M. and Warnock, M., eds. Art for all? Their policies and our culture London
2001 Van Erven, E., Community Theatre: Global Perspectives, London
2002 Fox, J., Eyes on Stalks, London.
2005 Carey, J., What Good are the Arts? London
2005 Graves, J., Cultural Democracy, The Arts, Community and the Public Purpose, Chicago
2005 Matarasso, F., Living Heritage, Community Development through Culture Resources, Brussels
2005 Moser, P., & MacKay, G., eds., Community Music, A Handbook, Lyme Regis
2005 Cohen-Cruz, J., Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States, New Brunswick
2006 Goldbard, A., New Creative Community, The Art of Cultural Development, Oakland
2008 Belfiore, E., & Bennett, O.,The Social Impact of the Arts, An Intellectual History, London
2008 Cleveland, B., Art and Upheaval, Artists on World’s Frontline, Oakland
2009 Thompson, J., Hughes, J. & Balfour, M. Performance in Place of War, London
2009 Thompson, J., Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect, London
2009 White, M., Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic, Oxford
2010 Simon, N., The Participatory Museum, Museum 2.0.
2011 Crehan, K, Community Art, An Anthropological Perspective, London.
2011 De Bruyne, P., Gielen, P., eds., Community Art, The Politics of Trespassing, Amsterdam
2011 Helguera, P., Education for Socially Engaged Art, A Materials and Techniques Handbook, New York
2012 Bishop, C., Artificial Hells, Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London
2012 Higgins, L., Community Music, In Theory and In Practice, Oxford
2012 Matarasso, F., Where We Dream, West Bromwich Operatic Society and the Fine Art of Musical Theatre, West Bromwich
2012 Matarasso, F., Winter Fires, Art and Agency in Old Age, London
2012 Weingärtner, J., The Arts as a Weapon of War: Britain and the Shaping of National Morale in World War II, New York
2013 Matarasso, F., 2013b, ‘Creative Progression: Reflections on quality in participatory arts’, UNESCO Observatory Multi-Disciplinary Journal in the Arts, Vol. 3 no. 3 Melbourne
2013 Van Erven, E., Community Art Power: Essays from ICAF 2011 Rotterdam
2013 Matarasso, F., , ‘All in this together’: The depoliticization of community art in Britain, 1970-2011’ in van Erven, E. ed., Community, Art, Power, Rotterdam
2013 Van Erven, E., Community Arts Dialogues, Utrecht
2014 Hewison, R., Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain, London
2014 Turino, C., The Point of Culture: Brazil Turned Upside Down, ed. Paul Heritage. Rosie Hunter & Poppy Spowage, London
2015 Arnaud, L., Guillon, V. & Martin, C., , Élargir la participation à la vie culturelle: Expériences françaises et étrangères, Grenoble
2015 Neal, L.,Playing for Time, Making art as if the world mattered, London
2015 Turnbull, G., ed., The Questions We Ask Together, Open Engagement
2015 Clift, S. & Camic, P., Oxford Textbook of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellbeing: International perspectives on practice, policy and research, Oxford
2016 See Red, See Red Women’s Workshop, Feminist Posters 1974-1990, London
2016 Tiller, C., Power Up, Creative People and Places, London
2016 Crossick, G., & Kaszynska, P., Understanding the value of arts & culture The AHRC Cultural Value Project, Swindon
2017 Jeffers, A., & Moriarty, G., eds., Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: The British Community Arts Movement, London
2018 64 Million Artists with Arts Council England, Cultural Democracy in Practice, London
2018 Bartlett, B.-L. & Higgins, L., eds., , The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, Oxford
2018 Bonet, L. & Négrier, E., eds., Breaking the Fourth Wall: Proactive Audiences in the Performing Arts, Elverum
François Matarasso 